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had a printing-house at the sign of the Crane in Paul's Churchyard. On the night of April 16th, in that year, the pursuivants appeared at his doors; and not gaining an entrance in that way, they broke down the main walls of the house and seized his press and letters and also a number of copies of the dialogue commonly known as Diotrephes written by the well-known Puritan minister of Kingston on Thames, John Udall, which Waldegrave had been secretly engaged in printing. In the tumult which ensued the persecuted printer managed to escape with a box of types 'under his cloke.' John Wolfe, the beadle of the Stationers' Company, posted forthwith to Whitgift at Croydon to inform my Lordes grace' of the capture and to get his instructions.2

There dwelt at this time in Aldermanbury near the Guildhall, London, a widow, Mrs. Crane, a great friend and benefactor of the reformers. Her husband, Nicholas Crane, had been the minister of Roehampton in Surrey, and as far back as 1569 had been in difficulties with the Bishops. He was a man of considerable repute among the reforming party, and like so many of his class had been educated at Cambridge. In the list of 'sundry faythfull christians Imprisoned by the ArchBishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London for the Ghospell of our Lord Jesus Christ,' written about May 1588, there is the following entry :

1 See note on Diotrephes in THE Epistle, 6.

2 The particulars are given in Herbert's Ames' Typ. Antiq. ii. 1145; and may be conveniently consulted in Dr. Arber's ed. of Diotrephes, Introd. xii. xiii. The Stationers' warden and his assistants seized 'A presse with two paire of cases with certaine Pica Romane and Pica Italian letters, with divers books entituled: The State of the Church of England laid open, etc. [i.e. Diotrephes].' Nearly a month later, on May 13th, the Court of the Stationers' Company resolve that the press and letters be destroyed. Wolfe receives xiid. for the job. Contemporary references to the defacing of Waldegrave's type must be taken as allusions to the events of April 16th. For instance, in the Dialogue wherin is laide open we read that his goods were destroied about Ester was a twelve moneth' (sig. B. 4). This would be about April 7th.' Matthew Sutcliffe writing years after the events he narrates, with access to all the official documents, alludes definitely to May 13th, on the authority of the Stationers' records; but the contemporary writers, especially those writing in the interests of the reformers, knew nothing of the private resolutions of the Stationers' Court of Assistants. In addition to the above references see Dr. Arber's Transcript, i. 528.

Nicholas Crane a man of 66. yeares havinge a wyef and Chyldren ffirst imprysoned by Loudon ffor hearing vt supra, after endighted and dyed of the Infection of the pryson in Newgate.1

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Henry Barrowe, himself a lawyer and able to realise the lawlessness which marked Whitgift's rule, says that no inquest was called or sat on his death as the law required. He adds that they would not soffer the body of this antient grave Preacher and Father M[aster] Cr[ane] to be caried to burial into the city through Newgate, leste the people who knew his vertue and godlines should espie and abhor their crueltie.'" The route to Aldermary would be along Newgate Street and 'Mylke Street.'

To the house of the widow, Mrs. Crane, Waldegrave's wife stole privately the day after the seizure of the press, bringing with her the box of rescued type, which Nicholas Tomkins, a servant of Mrs. Crane, took charge of. The box remained at Aldermary according to the same testimony ' about three months,' from April 17th to Midsummer.3

Waldegrave was not long before he obtained possession of another press and a fount of Roman type. He probably set up his press secretly at Kingston on Thames. Udall was a minister in the town, and would be bound to favour Waldegrave, who was a fugitive from the Archbishop's justice because he had printed Udall's dialogue Diotrephes. From his new printing-house, Waldegrave succeeded in issuing for Udall's friend, John Penry, a young Welshman soon destined to become famous both as a writer and as a martyr-he was sent to the gallows five years later-a work entitled An exhortation vnto the governours, and people of hir Maiesties country of Wales. This appeared about the end of April, so that Waldegrave must have set to work without delay. Dr. Robert Some, sometime chaplain to the Earl of Leicester, rector of Girton, and a year later elected Master of Peterhouse, had written A Godly Treatise.

1 Harl. MSS. 6848, 7 f.; Arber's Sketch, 39.

2 Lansd. MSS. 65, 65; Powicke, Trans. Cong. Hist. Soc. ii. 270.

3 The second Exam. of N. Tomkins, Harl. MSS. 7042. Arber's Sketch, 86.

Several of his controversial works bear that recommendatory title; this particular godly treatise was 'touching the Ministerie, Sacraments and Church.' Its date is May 6th, 1588. A second edition of Penry's tract states that 'master D[octor] Somes booke was published this day.'

(2) THE FIRST MARPRELATE PRINTING-HOUSE.-The authorities, ever on the look out for Waldegrave, must have heard that he was in the neighbourhood of Kingston; for we have an account of a celebrated expedition by water to the town despatched by the Stationers' Company on June 10th. The quest proved futile, except so far as it afforded a pleasant excursion to the Stationers' warden and his men. But evidently the search grew hot, and it was thought prudent to move the press. We therefore find Penry soliciting Mrs. Crane for the use of her house at East Molesey, near Kingston. Having received her permission, Mrs. Waldegrave called at Aldermary for the box of types which, with a load of stuff' were lodged at Molesey. The first work which Waldegrave took in hand was a new tract by Udall bearing the title A Demonstration of Discipline. Penry and Waldegrave are stated by Nicholas Tompkins to have resided at his mistress's house 'for three weeks from Midsummer.' The probability is that the press was used more or less during July and August; and during the latter month Waldegrave printed Penry's promised reply to Some's Godly Treatise, bearing the title, A Defence of that which hath bin written. Dr. Some issued an enlarged edition of his Godly Treatise, replying to Penry's Defence, bearing date Sept. 19th, 1588.

We may assume that having seen his pamphlet through the press, Penry departed for Northampton, which was early a centre of reforming activity; and, as already described, became the scene of an extended experiment of municipal government in accordance with the 'Discipline.' Edmund Snape, the curate of St. Peter's, Northampton, was a warm friend of Penry's. Bancroft states that in 1587 both Penry and Snape were members of the Presbyterian 1 See THE EPISTLE, 23, 43.

classis which met at Northampton.1 Penry here became acquainted with Henry Godley, who in 1584 was one of the two third borowes' for the 'sowth' ward; 2 and on Sept. 5th, 1588, at All Saints', the principal church in the town, Penry married Eleanor, the thirdborough's daughter.3 She proved herself during their brief and troubled married life to be a wife worthy of him in every respect.

(3) THE FIRST MARTIN.-About Michaelmas we find that Penry and Waldegrave are back at Mrs. Crane's house at East Molesey. Waldegrave had managed to get from the Continent a fount of very handsome 'black letter' type, in several sizes. And Penry, for most probably it was he, brought with him a notable manuscript-the 'copy' of the first Marprelate Tract, which we know as THE EPISTLE. This was printed during the early part of October from the new 'Dutch letters.' The difficulty of putting it into circulation was, no doubt, very great. But the men and women who had entered upon this daring enterprise were prepared to run risks; and in an extraordinary degree they that joined the ranks of the reformers were loyal to one another. Of those who were engaged in the production of the Marprelate Tracts, we know of no one who, to save his own skin, voluntarily supplied the authorities with convicting evidence, except Henry Sharpe, the Northampton bookbinder. And he appears to have been drawn to the business by mercenary motives, rather than by any strong and impelling religious convictions.

Copies were certainly sent without delay to London. Giles Wigginton,-soon to suffer as a suspected author from the rage of Whitgift, staying at Mrs. Crane's house in Aldermary at this time, was early supplied with copies, one of which he gave to Mrs. Crane's servant, Nicholas Tomkins. He in turn transferred the copy to his relatives. А сору which was being read at Mrs. Crane's was said to have cost

1 Dangerous Positions.

2 Dr. J. C. Cox, Records of the Boro' of Northampton. The thirdboroughs were subordinate officials of the constable,' vol. ii. 139, 140.

3 History of the Church of St. Peter's, Rev. R. M. Serjeantson, M.A., p. 35 n.

ninepence, but Tomkins could get as many copies as he wished for sixpence. Waldegrave even offered him the entire stock, giving him the chance of gaining twenty marks profit [£13:6:8 = £100 present money.-Dr. Arber].' The leading nonconforming ministers and laymen found means to get early copies. No doubt Mrs. Waldegrave was an assiduous 'distractor' of her husband's craftsmanship. If Mrs. Margaret Lawson, the 'shrew of Paul's Gate,' answered to the character given her by friend and foe, she would be a fearless distributing agent. Some of the booksellers were shrewdly suspected of carrying on a nefarious but not unprofitable trade in Martins.' In the neighbouring town of Kingston they soon got into circulation. They were on sale at the house of 'Markes Collyns,' who was 'one of the baylies of the Towne of Kingeston'; also at the house of 'one Robert Doddesdon.' Doddesdon was reported to have offered a copy of THE EPISTLE to a fellow-townsman, Roger Watson, for sixpence; though Nicholas Kydwell, who supplied this information, stated that the sayd bookes' were sold in the sayd housen for iid. a peece.' 2

(4) THE PRESS AT FAWSLEY HOUSE.-It had been foreseen by Penry, who in all his management of the secret press had shown a striking combination of cool daring and of prudent and cautious resourcefulness, that the press could not remain long at Molesey without detection. Mrs. Crane, a woman of some courage, had strong fears on the subject. Penry was, however, able to promise her that the whole of the apparatus would presently be removed to Northamptonshire. Among the persons favourable to church reform whom he had met at Northampton, the most distinguished undoubtedly was Sir Richard Knightley of Fawsley, who had filled the office of High Sheriff and was Deputy Lieutenant for the county, which he also represented in Parliament between the years 1584 and 1597. He was of an ancient family, and both by reason of his wealth and social position, as well as his official dignities, exercised a very considerable

1 Harl. MSS. 7042, fol. 13; Arber's Sketch, 85.

2 Nicholas Kydwell's deposition, Harl. MSS. 6849, fol. 157.

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